Spectral Sea: Mediterranean Palimpsests in European Culture (Medieval Interventions)

248 Pages·2017·4.97 MB·English

by  Stephen G. Nichols (editor), Joachim Küpper (editor), Andreas Kablitz (editor)

From the dawn of ancient civilization to modern times, the Mediterranean Sea looms in the imagination of 8
MEDIEVAL INTERVENTIONS
the people living on its shores as a space of myth and adventure, of conquest and confrontation, of migration
and settlement, of religious ferment and conflict. Since its waters linked the earliest empires and centers of
civilization, the Mediterranean generated globalization and multiculturalism. It gave birth to the three great
monotheisms—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—religions of the book, of the land and of the sea. Over the
centuries, the Mediterranean witnessed the rise and fall of some of the oldest civilizations in the world. And
as these cultures succeeded one another, century after century, each left a tantalizing imprint on later societies.
Like the ancient artifacts constantly washed up from its depths, the lost cities and monuments abandoned in
Spectral Sea
its deserts or sunk beneath its waves, Mediterranean topography and culture is a chaotic present spread over
a palimpsest many layers deep. S
P
E
No region grappled more continuously with, nor was more deeply marked by Mediterranean culture and C
history than Europe. Europe’s religions, its languages, its learning, its laws, its sense of history, even its food T
R MEDITERRANEAN PALIMPSESTS
and agriculture, all derived from Greek, Roman, and—in the Middle Ages—Muslim and Jewish cultures. The
A
essays in this book lay bare the dynamics of cultural confrontation between Europe and the Mediterranean L
IN EUROPEAN CULTURE

world from medieval to modern times. One momentous result of this engagement was the creation of ver- S
E
nacular languages and the diverse body of literature, history, and art arising from them. The achievements of
A
the arts reveal—to borrow a geological metaphor—the grinding tectonic pates of Mediterranean cultures and

|
languages butting up against pre-existing European strata.

N
Stephen G. Nichols is James M. Beall Professor Emeritus of French and Humanities at Johns Hopkins Uni- i STEPHEN G. NICHOLS
c
versity. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Medieval Academy of America, his h
o JOACHIM KÜPPER
Romanesque Signs: Early Medieval Narrative and Iconography received the MLA’s Lowell Prize. He holds an
l
s
honorary Docteur ès Lettres from the University of Geneva and is an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres. , ANDREAS KABLITZ, EDITORS

He received the Humboldt Research Prize in 2008 and 2015. He’s published 25 books, most recently From K
Parchment to Cyberspace: Medieval Literature in the Digital Age. ü
p
p
Joachim Küpper is Professor of Comparative Literature and Romance Literatures at Freie Universität Berlin, e
Germany. He has published literary, historiographical, and philosophical texts from Homer to the twentieth r,

century. He won the Heinz-Meyer Leibnitz prize as well as the Leibniz prize of the Deutsche Forschungs- K
gemeinschaft. He is currently working on a network theory of cultural dynamics (European Research Council a
b
Advanced Grant). He is a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences, a member of the l
i
t
German National Academy of Sciences/Leopoldina as well as of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. z
,

e
Andreas Kablitz is Professor of Romance Philology and Chair of the Romanisches Seminar of the Philoso- d
phische Fakultät of the Universität zu Köln. He is also the director of the Petrarca-Institute, member of the s
.
editorial board of the Romanistisches Jahrbuch and of the academic committee of the Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung.
In 1997 he was awarded the Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. In 2007 he was to the
German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina). In 2010 the President of the Italian Republic named
him Commendatore of the Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana. Although his recent research inter-
est focuses on Dante, his publications cover a wide range of topics from French, Italian and English litera-
ture, particularly, Petrarch, Tasso, and other Italian and French Renaissance authors as well as Shakespeare,
Thomas Mann, and Oscar Wilde. He has also written on Aristotle, Kant, and Wittgenstein.
P
E
T
E
R
L
A
N
G
www.peterlang.com
From the dawn of ancient civilization to modern times, the Mediterranean Sea looms in the imagination of 8
MEDIEVAL INTERVENTIONS
the people living on its shores as a space of myth and adventure, of conquest and confrontation, of migration
and settlement, of religious ferment and conflict. Since its waters linked the earliest empires and centers of
civilization, the Mediterranean generated globalization and multiculturalism. It gave birth to the three great
monotheisms—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—religions of the book, of the land and of the sea. Over the
centuries, the Mediterranean witnessed the rise and fall of some of the oldest civilizations in the world. And
as these cultures succeeded one another, century after century, each left a tantalizing imprint on later societies.
Like the ancient artifacts constantly washed up from its depths, the lost cities and monuments abandoned in
Spectral Sea
its deserts or sunk beneath its waves, Mediterranean topography and culture is a chaotic present spread over
a palimpsest many layers deep. S
P
E
No region grappled more continuously with, nor was more deeply marked by Mediterranean culture and C
history than Europe. Europe’s religions, its languages, its learning, its laws, its sense of history, even its food T
R MEDITERRANEAN PALIMPSESTS
and agriculture, all derived from Greek, Roman, and—in the Middle Ages—Muslim and Jewish cultures. The
A
essays in this book lay bare the dynamics of cultural confrontation between Europe and the Mediterranean L
IN EUROPEAN CULTURE

world from medieval to modern times. One momentous result of this engagement was the creation of ver- S
E
nacular languages and the diverse body of literature, history, and art arising from them. The achievements of
A
the arts reveal—to borrow a geological metaphor—the grinding tectonic pates of Mediterranean cultures and

|
languages butting up against pre-existing European strata.
N
Stephen G. Nichols is James M. Beall Professor Emeritus of French and Humanities at Johns Hopkins Uni- i STEPHEN G. NICHOLS
c
versity. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Medieval Academy of America, his h
o JOACHIM KÜPPER
Romanesque Signs: Early Medieval Narrative and Iconography received the MLA’s Lowell Prize. He holds an
l
s
honorary Docteur ès Lettres from the University of Geneva and is an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres. , ANDREAS KABLITZ, EDITORS

He received the Humboldt Research Prize in 2008 and 2015. He’s published 25 books, most recently From K
Parchment to Cyberspace: Medieval Literature in the Digital Age. ü
p
p
Joachim Küpper is Professor of Comparative Literature and Romance Literatures at Freie Universität Berlin, e
Germany. He has published literary, historiographical, and philosophical texts from Homer to the twentieth r,

century. He won the Heinz-Meyer Leibnitz prize as well as the Leibniz prize of the Deutsche Forschungs- K
gemeinschaft. He is currently working on a network theory of cultural dynamics (European Research Council a
b
Advanced Grant). He is a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences, a member of the l
i
t
German National Academy of Sciences/Leopoldina as well as of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. z
,

e
Andreas Kablitz is Professor of Romance Philology and Chair of the Romanisches Seminar of the Philoso- d
phische Fakultät of the Universität zu Köln. He is also the director of the Petrarca-Institute, member of the s
.
editorial board of the Romanistisches Jahrbuch and of the academic committee of the Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung.
In 1997 he was awarded the Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. In 2007 he was to the
German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina). In 2010 the President of the Italian Republic named
him Commendatore of the Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana. Although his recent research inter-
est focuses on Dante, his publications cover a wide range of topics from French, Italian and English litera-
ture, particularly, Petrarch, Tasso, and other Italian and French Renaissance authors as well as Shakespeare,
Thomas Mann, and Oscar Wilde. He has also written on Aristotle, Kant, and Wittgenstein.
P
E
T
E
R
L
A
N
G
www.peterlang.com
Spectral Sea
MEDIEVAL INTERVENTIONS
New Light on Traditional Thinking

Stephen G. Nichols
General Editor

Vol. 8

This book is a volume in a Peter Lang monograph series.
Every volume is peer reviewed and meets
the highest quality standards for content and production.

PETER LANG
New York  Bern  Frankfurt  Berlin
Brussels  Vienna  Oxford  Warsaw
Spectral Sea

Mediterranean Palimpsests
in European Culture

Edited by Stephen G. Nichols,
Joachim Küpper, and Andreas Kablitz

PETER LANG
New York  Bern  Frankfurt  Berlin
Brussels  Vienna  Oxford  Warsaw
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Nichols, Stephen G., editor. | Küpper, Joachim, editor. | Kablitz, Andreas, editor.
Title: Spectral sea: Mediterranean palimpsests in European culture /
edited by Stephen G. Nichols, Joachim Küpper, and Andreas Kablitz.
Description: New York: Peter Lang, [2017]
Series: Medieval interventions; Vol. VIII
ISSN 2376-2683 (print) | ISSN 2376-2691 (online)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017013830 | ISBN 978-1-4331-4322-9 (paperback: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4331-4317-5 (hardcover: alk. paper) | ISBN 978-1-4331-4314-4 (epdf)
ISBN 978-1-4331-4315-1 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-4331-4316-8 (mobi)
Subjects: LSCH: Europe—Civilization—Greek influences.
Europe—Civilization—Roman influences.
Europe—Civilization—Middle Eastern influences.
Classification: LCC CB203 .S64 2017 | DDC 940—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017013830
DOI 10.3726/b11113

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available
on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.

Publication subvention generously provided by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung Foundation

© 2017 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York
29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006
www.peterlang.com

All rights reserved.
Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
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Table of Contents
Contributors vii
Preface xi
Introduction xiii
On the Salutary Effects of Empire: Muslims, Jews, and the
Calculus of Benefaction 1
Marina rustow (Princeton university)
Thought Things: Greek, Arabic, Latin 51
Daniel Heller-roazen (Princeton university)
Greek Fathers, Roman Tyrants, Spanish Martyrs:
The Invention of European Vernacular Language 69
stePHen G. nicHols (JoHns HoPkins university)
The Gaze of the Other: Decentered Vision and Language
in Fifteenth-Century French Poets 91
Jacqueline cerquiGlini-toulet (university
of Paris iv, tHe sorbonne)
The Uncanny Beyond: The Mediterranean as Imaginary
Frontier of Medieval Christian Culture 103
Jan-Dirk Müller (luDwiG MaxiMillians university, MunicH)
Crusade Witness: Joinville’s Vie de Saint Louis 121
axel rütH (albertus MaGnus university, coloGne)
vi table of contents
Rome, Italy and the End of the History of Salvation:
Petrarch’s Italia mia 143
GerHarD reGn (luDwiG MaxiMillians university, MunicH)
Sentimental Revivals: Gérard de Nerval’s Voyage en Orient 157
JoacHiM küPPer (free university, berlin)
“Geist” as Medium of Art: Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan 203
DaviD e. wellbery (university of cHicaGo)
Index 217
Contributors
Jacqueline Cerquiglini-TouleT is Professor emerita at the University of
Paris-Sorbonne. She specializes in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century French
literature, especially Guillaume de Machaut, Christine de Pizan and François
Villon. Before her appointment as Professor of Medieval French at the Sor-
bonne, she held a chair in medieval French at the University of Geneva. In
North America, she has been visiting professor at a number of institutions
including Princeton University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of
California (Berkeley), the University of Pennsylvania, and Dartmouth Col-
lege. Among her books are The Color of Melancholy and A New History of
Medieval French Literature. Her edition and translation of Les Oeuvres com-
plètes de François Villon was published in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade in
2014.
Daniel Heller-roazen is the Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Com-
parative Literature and the Council of the Humanities at Princeton Univer-
sity. His most recent books are No One’s Ways: An Essay on Infinite Naming
(2017); Dark Tongues: The Art of Rogues and Riddlers (2013); and The Fifth
Hammer: Pythagoras and the Disharmony of the World (2011). He has also
edited the Norton Critical Edition of the Arabian Nights (2010).
Joachim Küpper is Professor of Comparative Literature and Romance Liter-
atures at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. He has published on literary, his-
toriographical and philosophical texts from Homer to the twentieth century.
He was awarded the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz prize as well as the Leibniz prize of
the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. He is currently working on a network
theory of cultural dynamics (European Research Council Advanced Grant).
He is a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences, and a
viii contributors
member of the German National Academy of Sciences/Leopoldina as well as
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Jan-Dirk Müller is Professor Emeritus of German Philology at the Uni-
versity of Munich. After studying at the Universities of Vienna, Tübingen
and Cologne, he held Professorships at the University of Münster, and then
at the University of Hamburg. In 1991, he was named Professor of medieval
German at Munich. He is a member of the Bavarian Academy and Academy
of Göttingen, a fellow of the Historische Kolleg of Munich, and IFK [Inter-
national Research Center for Cultural Studies] in Vienna. He has held visiting
professorships at Washington University (St. Louis), the University of Kansas
(Lawrence), and the University of California (Berkeley). His books include
Rules for the Endgame: The World of the Nibelungenlied; Höfische Kompromisse:
Act Kapitel zur Höfishen Epik; Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, “Emilia Galotti”;
and Minnesang und Literaturtheorie.
Stephen G. niCHols is James M. Beall Professor Emeritus of French and
Humanities at Johns Hopkins University. A fellow of the American Acad-
emy of Arts and Sciences, the Medieval Academy of America, and Honorary
Senior Fellow of the School of Criticism and Theory (Cornell), he received
the MLA’s James Russell Lowell Prize for Romanesque Signs: Early Medieval
Narrative and Iconography. He holds an honorary Docteur ès Lettres, from
the University of Geneva, and was decorated Officier de l’Ordre des Arts
et Lettres by the French government. The Alexander von Humboldt Foun-
dation awarded him a Research Prize in 2008 and 2015. He has held Gug-
genheim and ACLS research fellowships. Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins
Digital Library of Medieval Manuscripts, he co-founded Digital Philology,
A Journal of Medieval Culture, published by the Johns Hopkins University
Press. Author or editor of twenty-five books, the most recent is From Parch-
ment to Cyberspace: Medieval Literature in the Digital Age (2016).
Gerhard regn is Professor Emeritus of Italian Philology at the University of
Munich and Honorary Professor at the University of Cologne. His research
focuses on Italian medieval and premodern literature, and on nineteenth-
and twentieth-century literature in Italy and France. He is a full member of
the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. In 2007 he was nom-
inated Commendatore dell’Ordine della Solidarietà Italiana of the Italian
Republic. Regn has published numerous articles and books, including Letture
Petrarchesche (2007, co-editor); Lyriktheorie(n) der italienischen Renaissance
(2012 co-author); Francesco Petrarca, Secretum meum; and Lateinisch-
Deutsch (second newly revised edition, 2013, co-editor and co-translator).